My Architects Registration Exam odyssey started about a year
ago, in March, 2013. I started taking the exams because, after three and a half
years of grad school, and several years of working experience, I was tired of
not being able to call myself an architect. I knew enough about the series of
seven exams to expect them to be tough but achievable if I invested time and
energy into studying and preparation. What completely surprised me was how the
process of studying and sitting for the AREs (as of this writing, I am studying
for my fifth exam) renewed my passion and enthusiasm for the practice of
architecture at a time when they most needed burnishing.
A lot of young architects I know have had a love/hate
relationship with the profession, and I cannot excuse myself from that group.
This is especially the case for many of us who graduated during the height (or
should I say depth?) of the recession and may have experienced some frustration
finding work that is stable and engaging in an environment that allows us to
grow into our full potential as architects.
When job after job turns out to be just a gig; positions
billed as Architectural Internships (with all the IDP-worthy experience implied
by those words) turn out to be little more than internships (as in that thing
you did one summer during college that involved making a lot of coffee and
getting really nimble with Excel); when you find yourself having to apologize
at an interview for requiring payment in exchange for your labor, you’d be a
chump not to start seriously, bitterly questioning your career choices.
A couple years out of grad school I felt about ready to
break up with architecture, but I couldn’t just walk away without feeling like
something would be out of equilibrium. A little voice in my head told me not to
quit without completing what I had started so many years ago. I had set out to
become an architect, invested so many years towards that goal, and, being
incapable of leaving a task partially completed, I needed to obtain my license,
to become an architect in order to gain clarity on my situation.
There was no pressure from the outside to start taking my
exams. My office at the time did not make a point of systematically encouraging
its young employees to get licensed (although they certainly didn’t discourage
it either and in fact allowed me time off to take the exams – for which I am
very grateful). There was just that little voice commanding “Complete! Finish
what was started!”
So, I dug in and sorted through the small print detailing
the process of applying for initial licensure, the first step towards being
cleared to sit for the exams. This was perhaps the most daunting part of the
process: the slick design of NCARB’s website breaks down and the user interface
loses its coherence in the section laying out the complicated state by state
requirements and processes for registering to sit for the exams. After
untangling the myriad rules and requirements, I sent my application to the
state department of professions and occupations, parted with a significant
amount of money, and waited for testing permission to be granted.
In the meantime, I reviewed the material, starting out with
NCARB’s ARE exam guides, taking the practice multiple choice questions at the
end of the guide to see how comfortable I was with the material covered by each
test. By the time my permission to test letter arrived in the mail, I was ready
to schedule the first exam.
We’ve all heard the stories about the monstrously horrid
NCARB proprietary graphic vignette CAD software. On the advice of a coworker
who had just gotten his license, I chose to start with the Schematic Design
exam (SD), both for an easy first pass, and in order to get very comfortable working
with that proprietary CAD software at the outset of the exam process.
The SD exam consists of two graphic vignettes with no
multiple choice questions. You don’t study for this exam so much as practice
for it: practice wrestling the software into submission, practice finding
solutions to the layout problems, practice focusing exclusively on fulfilling the program
requirements and ignoring all aesthetic and good space planning considerations
(a peculiar skill necessary for almost all ARE vignettes).
Since it was my first exam and I was nervous, I practiced
for about a month and a half, doing the NCARB practice exam and all of the
forum alternates dozens of times until I could complete them all in less than
half the allotted time. This was complete overkill. Several exams wiser, I now
realize I could have passed this exam with no more than a week of practice. Maybe
two, if they were busy weeks. However, the extreme over-preparation allowed me
to walk into and out of my first exam with a feeling of glowing confidence that
could only be undermined by the nagging anxiety that attends nearly two months
waiting for exam results (this was pre-blackout, kids).
Immediately after that first exam I ate a good meal. Six
hours of testing with no fuel left me feeling weak and light-headed. This
seemingly irrelevant detail actually relates to my best and most practical
advice to every ARE candidate: bring a sandwich and a bottle of water to the
exam and eat during the mandatory 15 minute break between exam sections. You’ll
probably have to eat in the hallway because the testing centers generally don’t
allow food in the waiting area, and you’ll probably feel pretty silly pacing
the corridors sandwich in tow. But alas, the brain runs on glucose and you
don’t want your supply of this vital energy running low when you need it most.
I made the mistake of waiting until after the exam to re-fuel, and I paid for
it with discomfort and less than optimal performance during the last hour and a
half of the Building Layout vignette.
Signed
Rae Solomon
